Cannes 2024: All You Need To Know About All We Imagine As Light, India's First Palme d'Or Contender In 30 Years

All We Imagine As Light has instantly emerged as a frontrunner for the Palme d'Or

One of the final few main Competition titles to premiere at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light has instantly emerged as a frontrunner for the Palme d'Or. No Indian female director has ever competed for Cannes' top prize nor has any filmmaker from the country bagged the coveted award. Universally applauded by critics at the festival due to end later today, the spellbinding, magnificently crafted drama about three women finding their way into and out of Mumbai, a city with which they have very tenuous relationships, has put India on the threshold of history.

Payal Kapadia, flanked by her four principal actors, Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Hridhu Haroon and Chhaya Kadam, cinematographer Ranabir Das and producers Thomas Hakim of Petit Chaos and Zico Maitra of Chalk and Cheese, addressed critics at the festival's press conference hall on Friday morning.

Critics have heaped unstinted press on the film. BBC described All We Imagine as Light as "universal and emotional enough to hypnotise anyone who has been alone in a city, or been spellbound by a film on the subject." "Just two films into her young career, Kapadia has established her rare talent for finding passages of exquisite poetry within the banal blank verse of everyday India life," wrote Variety's Jessica Kiang.